Killjoy Battles

“Oh, that clock! Old killjoy. I hear you. Come on, get up, you say, Time to start another day. Even he orders me around. Well, there’s one thing. They can’t order me to stop dreaming.”~Cinderella

The Killjoy. Everyone knows one. Everyone has them cross their paths once in their life.

Sad to say that I have them in droves. Inside my social circles and family. It drives me insane to the point where I come here to WordPress and blog about it late at night.

In a recent blog post, I talked about the end of the sledge hockey season for the Austin Blades. And the great possibility that the team has to join the Houston team throughout the summer so as not to get rusty over the hot months.

Earlier this evening, GOOD NEWS came from the Houston team as they were able to pinpoint where the USA Hockey Disabled Festival for 2014 will be held.

The 2014 tournament will be held in Marlborough, Massachusetts just outside of Boston. It was a bit disappointing as I had hoped that it would be held in Florida. I was hoping to meet a colleague there. But instead, I have the opportunity to meet YouTube personality, AskCarrieLee. (And maybe Michael Buckley from WHATTHEBUCKSHOW, if I asked nicely.)

I found both of them online probably six or seven years ago, and I’ve been able to establish a personal friendship with them both in one degree or another. So I think that it would be great to meet them in person as well as show them this magnificent adaptive sport.

Nevertheless, the excitement and joy rushed over me like a tidal wave. And I began to contact people who follow my sledge hockey career here locally. Friends and family both, I began to tell them that we just found out where the next tournament will be at.

Apparently I need to enunciate better over the telephone. “Boston” sounded like “Austin” to some of them. Oops!!

I have a full year to prepare and save and do what I need to do to fund raise in order to be able to participate. I really hope that I can, it being the tenth annual tournament.

But all I ran into was a bunch of killjoys. People just crushing my excitement, joy, and enthusiasm.

I sat there getting lectured about how expensive it is to travel to this tournament. And this was something I am already aware of. I received more lectures of the fact that I would fail in earning enough money to go, if I attempted this on my own as well as there’s nobody around here locally that could help.

Where do these people get the guts to say stuff like this to me?? Most importantly, why am I just sitting there listening to this garbage???

It occurred to me that these kinds of people are the exact types of people that I honestly don’t need to be associating with. All they do is troll my life, my joy, and my excitement. Looking for a way to knock me down out of the stars when I have gone shooting up in the air for them. 

There’s no law that says that you have to listen to these depressing and negative people. You can walk away from them. And most likely, you probably should. If all that they do is bring you down when you are up, then the influence of these people are not necessary and they will hold you down and not allow you to succeed in anything….. if you let them!

So yet again, I am swinging the blade to cut and sever these kinds of people from my life. Those who have been nothing but negative, must go!!! They should all know that sledge hockey is very important to me. It is something that I excel in as well as enjoy doing. And for them to try and cut me down and say that I shouldn’t do it or cannot do it? Its uncalled for and so yet again, I edit those who have any influence with me at all.

To support and love me is to support my dream in this adaptive sport. If you’re not on Team Dambreaker, then you don’t need to be anywhere near me and involved in my personal life.

 

 

Moments In Uncle History

 

Well, nothing can save me now.

As I was sitting in the passenger seat of my sister’s vehicle, my seven year old nephew and two and a half year old niece in the back seat, the adult conversation that was taking place in the front was not under exemption of being heard by the younger ones in the back.

I thought that I was having the common decency to lower my voice to a whisper, and only speaking loud enough to where my sister could hear and I didn’t have to repeat myself.

We were having a discussion about someone, and I ended my sentence with the commentary of “What a jackass!”.

To the horror of my own hearing, and most likely my sister, in the back seat came the emulation from the two year old.

The vocal response of “quack whas” that came from my niece’s mouth put my sister and I both in shock and in a fit of hysteria. But neither one of us could figure out which way to take it.

The seven year old knew better. I was anticipating his reply to be “Bad Word! Bad Word!”, but when he heard the adults in the front start to laugh a little bit, then he decided to chime in with his own rendition of “quack whas”. But his version sounds more of an impaired version of “cracked glass” instead of “jackass”.

For the remainder of the evening, the older sibling kept pushing his luck by trying to get the younger one to say it again and again and again. But THIS UNCLE was very fortunate that she never uttered the phrase again. At least not in my presence.

But to hear my two and a half year old niece try to talk is often funny at times. My sister and I often reflect on the time back in June when we were trying to teach her the word “pine cone”, and she kept saying “pine corn”.

Just a couple of months later, she does say it correctly. So now the amusement of “pine corn” is nothing but history.

Now she has a new phrase that she stumbles to say correctly. Perhaps its just a mouthful to her at this point.

“Stop! In la la la la la”. Or to us, “Stop! In the name of the law!”.

I have pondered such implications about the unfortunate English lesson that my niece jumped in on. Of all the things to teach a child, why did it have to be that she’s got the hearing of a bat? Does it show that I do not have any children?? I think it does.

One thing is for sure, as long as its not being repeated to her at home, and as long as I am not saying it again in front of her, she’ll forget all about it soon. I cannot really stop the seven year old nephew though. I’m not sure if he’s been trying to get her to say it again and again. The boy just knows that its “wrong to say” and she is “saying it wrong”.

I knew better though. And it could have been a lot worse. I could have censored myself, instead I chose full throttle language at a greatly diminished volume and she STILL caught on!!

 

Change For Nobody But Yourself

“Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”~ Helen Keller

Today I was met up by someone that I had not seen in a very long time. It was a nice moment from the beginning as I began to wonder what had happened to them since we had departed from one another. And then suddenly, those thoughts had changed. I began to remember why it was that I had departed from them in the first place.

I have been saying all day, “Some things never change”. And it could’ve been really depressing if I would have dwelled upon it longer. But I had the strength to shrug it off and move on.

I think that I’ve had a hard time as of lately because I see things in people that they cannot see themselves. But that’s not to say that other people cannot see things in me that I cannot. Particular situations and events arise and I stop to think to myself, “Why in the world would you allow yourself to go through with that?”. Quite honestly though, it really isn’t my call. It is not up to me to say what a person can and cannot do. I just have to worry about myself in the long run. And whatever is the outcome of the decisions of others, is not for me to worry about as it is only they, who must deal with their own actions.

I had then thought, “Maybe it is I who needs change”. And at that point, the entire struggle within myself came to an end.

Nobody should change for any one else but themselves. Sure, we can sacrifice our own happiness for the happiness of others as they say, and to do that is the greatest form of love above all.

But it is only one small and certain area in our lives that we are “changing”. We’re not really doing a lot of changing. It is more adapting than anything. To change ourselves would mean a whole new and different person. And the way that we lived our lives before is totally gone.

We should always do whatever makes us happy, and yet in the same sentence it should also be said that we don’t need to step on other people’s toes in order to do whatever it is that makes us happy. If we’re stepping on toes and running people over, its just greed. So I think that I should really throw caution to the wind in saying that being selfish is not the same thing as being happy. We might think that what we are doing will make us happy, but in the ultimate end we only made ourselves miserable.

We are in control of our own lives. We make the choices to allow every individual into our lives. And we have the control to omit them as well, if they are certainly not making us happy. Which is what I had done so long ago and hadn’t seen or spoken to them until today. And I was reminded of that by one of my best friends today. If certain people are making you unhappy, let them go.

There’s just no plausible way to make the entire world approve of us. To try and do so would be in vain. But we, can decide if someone is making us happy that we would like them to remain a part of our lives. And discard and walk away from those people who do not.